Instructional Objectives in Text: Managing the Reader's Attention

Abstract

It is well established that the provision of instructional objectives before reading a text increases the learning of objective-relevant material in the text. The purpose of the present study was to identify some of the mechanisms by which objectives affect learning. College students studied text under three conditions: with specific objectives, with a general objective, and with no objectives. The objective-relevant material was located either high or low in the content structure of the text. The dependent measures were secondary task reaction time—a measure of cognitive capacity use—reading time, and free recall for objective-relevant material. The results indicated that with specific objectives, the secondary-task reaction times while reading objective-relevant material were longer, reading times were longer, and recall was greater than with either a general objective or with no objectives. Reading times were significantly correlated with recall, but secondary task reaction times were not. In addition, more information was recalled when the objective-relevant material was located high in the text structure. The interpretation of these results is that, with specific objectives, students devote more cognitive capacity to objective-relevant material, spend more time reading it, and recall more of it than when they do not have specific objectives.

Thinking out loud while studying text: Rehearsing key ideas.

“…We have replicated Britton et al's (1985) previous findings and those of others by demonstrating that the provision of instructional objectives can enhance students' recall of information regardless of its height in the content structure. Of greater importance, we have shown that this way of cuing students' selective attention actually promotes real-time rehearsal activity—that is, the activity of mentally repeating, paraphrasing, and summarizing content so as to commit it to memory.…”

“…If we can find out how objectives increase learning, researchers and authors may be able to increase the effectiveness of the objectives that they design. In the first study, Britton, Glynn, Muth, and Penland (1985) replicated the finding that objectives increase the recall of objective-relevant text content. Of more importance, however, was that they demonstrated that objectives also increase the amount of time that students spend reading the objective relevant content, as well as the mental effort that students use.…”

“…Each text was about 600 words in length. These texts appeared in Meyer's (1975) book and were reprinted by Britton et al (1985) with instructions for using them.…”

Retrieval enhances eyewitness suggestibility to misinformation in free and cued recall.

“…Prior free recall may lead to better organization and increased accessibility of details of the witnessed event, which may in turn facilitate comprehension and encoding of the postevent narrative (Arnold & McDermott, 2013;Wissman, Rawson, & Pyc, 2011). It is also possible that by completing the initial free recall test, participants are better able to anticipate the level of details required to perform well on any subsequent memory tests, thus causing a shift in encoding strategy towards remembering details (Britton, Glynn, Muth, & Penland, 1985;McCrudden & Schraw, 2007). Finally, performing an initial free recall test provides participants with information about what they have learned well and what they have not (Lachman & Laughery, 1968;Padilla-Walker & Poole, 2002;Thompson, Wenger, and Bartling, 1978).…”

Advance organizers: Facilitators of recall

“…A computer search (ERIC and PSY-CHINFO) from 1975 (since the Barnes and Clawson review) through 1990 using the key words "advance organizer" identified over 100 studies for review. Included were a variety of prereading activities such as studentgenerated text headings (e.g., Brooks et al, 1983); passage or paragraph headings (e.g., Doctorow et aL, 1978;Hartley et al, 1980;Watson, 1981); previews (e.g., Graves et aL, 1983); graphic or pictorial preorganizers (e.g., Dean and Enemoh, 1983;Mayer, 1983;Patrick and Evans, 1983;Thelen, 1979); information mapping (e.g., Jonassen, 1981); advance, guiding, or student-generated questions (e.g., Doctorow et al, 1978;Fowler and Lamberg, 1979;Hansen, 1981;Herber and Nelson, 1975;Ramsel and Grabe, 1983;Rickards and Denner, 1979); study goals or objectives (e.g., Britton et al, 1985;Rothkopf and Koether, 1978); outlines (e.g., Darch and Gersten, 1986;Glynn et al, 1985;Glynn and DiVesta, 1977;Guthrie, 1978;Thomas and Cummings, 1978); descriptions of text organization (e.g., Barnett, 1984;Schumacher et al, 1975;Slater et al, 1985;Snouffer and Thistlethwait, 1980); summaries before reading (e.g., Cook, 1981;Hartley et al, 1979); and student predictions (e.g., Hansen, 1981). Although these activities may prove to be beneficial reading aids, they would be more satisfactorily classifted as a type of adjunct aid (i.e., response modes, objectives, or questions; see Faw and Waller, 1976 for a more thorough discussion) other than advance organizer.…”